


Bruises

by themysteryvanishing



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Cancer, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themysteryvanishing/pseuds/themysteryvanishing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

 

 _You might notice some bruising_ , the doctor had said, from across his oak desk the afternoon immediately following The Phone Call, while her gaze had flitted from the oncologist’s hallowed wall of achievements to a dove that was perched on the sill in the window behind the white coat. Or was it a pigeon? She couldn’t remember. Weren’t they the same genus? Did it matter? Did any of it?

_…bruising which will be due to the chemo. Your capillaries will leak more easily, so don’t be startled if you start seeing some discoloration not long after the infusions. In areas where your skin is thinner, around your eyes, for example, the bruising may be much more noticeable._

“Tea bags?” Myka asked quietly, indicating the box Helena had clasped in her lap.

From her place in the chair beside Myka’s hospital bed, Helena nodded. “Chamomile. For under your eyes. Its anti-inflammatory properties should reduce—”

Myka looked away, towards the window, and Helena quieted.

She contented herself with watching the unsteady rising and falling of Myka’s chest and counted them in her head against the ticking from the clock on the wall. Myka’s breathing was harder these days, as if her lungs weren’t as deep as they used to be. Helena had read every piece of medical literature she could get her hands on, made it her duty to know everything she could, and judging by breaths per minute, she was willing to estimate that Myka’s anemia had slipped into the moderate category by now. Getting enough oxygen—such an astonishingly simple task—was a challenge, an obstacle for a woman who, not even a few weeks ago, was chasing down the mysteries of endless wonder and putting her life on the line all in the name of saving the world.

Add that to the crumbling self-esteem that Helena was witnessing in Myka since the bruises had begun appearing, and Helena found herself wishing more and more that she had her own laboratory again. She hated this, this feeling of utter… _uselessness_. When the world got too quiet, she could still hear Myka’s distant screams from the shower, one afternoon last week at the bed and breakfast, after she’d discovered inexplicably massive bruises on her legs. It was one sound she wished, above all things, to forget. Helena longed to take it—the pain, the anger, the horror, the grief—away.

“It’s not nice to stare,” Myka murmured, sadness evident in her voice. “If Pete could see me now—”

“—he would likely suggest you resemble a panda, and would’ve brought you bamboo from the gift shop downstairs,” Helena finished, quirking a tiny smile. “Forgive me, but these tea bags might serve a more… _pragmatic_  purpose.”

Myka sniffed.

“You are, and will always be, beautiful to me, Myka,” Helena said, placing the box of chamomile in her seat and moving to a spot on the bed. The afternoon sunlight, warm and radiant, glinted off of Myka’s loose curls.

Myka licked her lips, which were chapped from perpetual dehydration, and finally looked back at Helena. “You mean it?”

“Of course, darling. Beauty,” she said, as Myka finally offered a small smile, “is in the  _heart_  of the beholder.”


End file.
